"I actually like it when The Doctor is a relatively unknown actor, or one without one huge role that made them famous," he wrote.

"I like to see The Doctor as The Doctor, and an actor who doesn't bring baggage is a grand sort of thing. A star waiting to happen. So I don't want to see Helen Mirren or Sir Ian McKellen or Chiwetel Ejiofor, or any of the famous names people are suggesting.

"I want to see The Doctor. I want to be taken by surprise. I want to squint at a photo of the person online and go, 'But how can that be The Doctor?'

"Then I want to be amazingly, delightedly, completely proven wrong, and, six episodes in, I want to wonder how I could have been so blind. Because this is the Doctor. Of course it is."